Better measurements of memory ability in dementia

Around 10 million people in Europe get diagnosed with dementia every year. NeuroMET has been a European research and innovation project (2016 – 2022) which has aimed at developing and improving measurement methods to help evaluate the effects of new treatments and drugs and enable earlier diagnosis. RISE has focused on developing quality-assured, traceable, and comparable methods for measuring the memory ability of patients. There are several testing tools used both clinically and in research today, but they lack reliability.

“The large measurement uncertainties in these tests mean that it is next to impossible to determine a person's memory ability at an early stage and in turn provide a reliable basis for diagnosing incipient dementia”, says Jeanette Melin, researcher at RISE and one of the participants in NeuroMET.

To be able to diagnose and make decisions about interventions as early as possible is one important reason for better reliability in memory measurements. Another reason is to be able to rule out dementia and instead identify other diseases or conditions. With better measurements of memory ability, it is also possible to better understand the dependency to biomarkers so that the impact of biomarkers on the disease can be evaluated in a better way. Biomarkers for dementia can, for example, be brain volume or the level of concentration of various proteins that influence the development of dementia. In this way, the research can contribute to the important task of developing future drugs that can slow the progress of dementia.

Valid and reliable measurement values

Together with Leslie Pendrill, researcher at RISE and one of the initiators of NeuroMET, Melin and her colleagues have developed a new way of measuring a patient’s memory ability, based on existing tests that are used clinically and in research. They have investigated which data from the existing tests can best be combined to both increase reliability and ensure validity, i.e., that the measurement is relevant and measures the memory ability and nothing else.

“The idea is that those who work clinically and in research should be able to continue using the existing tests but get measurement values that are significantly more reliable by using a conversion table. Optimally, all included tests are used together, but one or two tests can also be used individually, even though this increases the measurement uncertainty”, says Leslie Pendrill.

NeuroMET Memory Metric

The combination of test data is based on basic principles of quality-assured, traceable, and comparable measurements and is called the NeuroMET Memory Metric. The result is a method to better compare different people's results or a person's results over time to see how the disease progresses.

“The NeuroMET Memory Metric can be used already today, and in the coming years we will work to make it further available through adding more evaluations (with larger target groups and with other memory tests) and digitalization, with the aim of attracting more users, both clinically and in research”, says Jeanette Melin.